


For a Moment, it's Beautiful

by the_most_beautiful_broom



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Morning Cuddles, Raven Reyes-centric, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-14 17:37:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14774126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_most_beautiful_broom/pseuds/the_most_beautiful_broom
Summary: Raven is working herself to exhaustion, and Zeke tries to convince her to take a break; banter, platonic bed sharing, snuggles ensue."I'm not in denial; I'm just tired." As soon as she says it, Zeke snaps his fingers, and Raven hears what she just said.“I’m sorry,” Zeke gloats, “you’re what?”Raven purses her lips, refusing to look at him. “I’m working very hard and was making decent progress until some distraction burst into my lab—”She doesn’t think he can get any more smug but apparently she’s wrong because she can hear the smirk on his voice. “Distracting, huh?”“That’s not what I meant,” she mumbles, wishing her mind would uncloud itself for long enough to deal with the firewalls and Zeke, preferably simultaneously.“Yeah. Yeah, I know,” Zeke says, the smug lilt gone from his voice, and that sudden emptiness is enough for Raven to chance another glance over at him.





	For a Moment, it's Beautiful

“Take a break, Reyes.”

Zeke’s voice echoes around the command center and it takes Raven a moment to realize he’s talking to her. Of course, now that her concentration is broken, she remembers the crick in her neck and the way her back aches from being hunched in the same position for so long, and her frown deepens. The last thing she needs right now is Zeke. 

Not because of bad blood or anything—she’s forgiven him for everything that happened with him and her and Murphy far quicker than she’d liked to admit; apparently her time in space has weakened her to the power of sincere eyes and a pretty face—but right now she needs to focus. And, loathe as she is to admit it, Lieutenant Shaw has become an increasing distraction over the time she’s known him. 

“I will,” she says, rolling her neck, grimacing at the movement. “Once this is done.”

“Mmm, no. Now.”

Zeke’s voice is closer, but Raven still doesn't move her eyes from the screens in front of her. If she does, she doubts she can look back. She’s spent six hours on this stool in the middle of the room, fighting with a new wave of encryptions Monty stumbled upon. She’d initially thought they were protecting empty files, but forty minutes into it, she’d realized no one would build walls this thick with nothing behind them. Hence the hours of coding and swearing and pretending her eyes weren’t heavy and her leg wasn’t screaming in protest to the lack of movement. 

“You don’t have to wait up, Lieutenant,” Raven says, eyes skimming the screen. Somewhere in this block of code is a line with a variable that was missing. Or that’s wrong. Or redundant. Or throwing the whole thing into a loop. Or—

“It’s 4am, Raven,” Zeke says, his tired voice interrupting her thoughts, but Raven still refuses to look at him. 

“Then you should probably leave me alone so I can finish this,” she says pointedly, and Zeke lets out a soft laugh, almost in spite of himself. 

“If I leave you alone you’re going to fall asleep on the keyboard.”

“I would never,” she mutters, finding the missing variable and deleting it with satisfaction. She holds her breath as the code runs again, watching its process run on the bottom of the screen and hoping that this is the one that does the trick. 

No such luck. 

The line bolds in red, and Raven retypes it with a scowl, before lifting her hands to her face, rubbing her eyes. Six hours. There had only been so much to do on the ark and she knows she's out of practice but six hours? Sinclair would be embarrassed. 

“It’ll be there in the morning,” Zeke says soothingly, his voice careful and close. Surprised, she looks over to find him perched on one of the stools next to her, his eyes appraising on the code. Her hands slide from her face to her hair, before crossing in front of her reflexively before she blurts the question running through her mind. 

“Why aren’t you wearing a shirt?”

His eyes snap to hers in amusement, before he looks down at himself, like there’s nothing out of the ordinary for him to be in her lab in the infant hours of the morning, half dressed. “Because it’s 4am.”

“You said that already,” Raven says, making herself look back to the screens, trying not to question why she’s suddenly more awake, but no more focused, “is there some curfew I don’t know about?”

Zeke chuckles, a light rumble from deep in his chest that Raven knows—why does she know this—means his eyes are crinkled and his face relaxed. “Believe it or not, Reyes, some of us were trying to sleep.”

And there’s nothing she can say to that without starting down a path that she doesn’t have enough energy to dance around this early in the morning.  

So she shakes her head and settles her fingers over the keys. Maybe she’s punching a hole in the wrong part of the encryption? A back door she hasn’t thought to try, something she missed the first one, or forty, times through it?

“It’s a 20 minute walk from here back to my cabin in the village,” she says tiredly, not knowing why she feels like she needs to explain, but preferring it to the silence. “So 20 minutes there, 20 minutes back...if I leave right now, and only slept for an hour, that’s 6am; that’s halfway through the morning.”

“In what world is 6am halfway through the morning?” Zeke asks, his voice equal parts horrified and incredulous.

“These guys,” Raven highlights a particularly daunting string of code and looks over at Zeke, raising an eyebrow, “don’t need a break for sleep.”

“Look, I don’t know how to tell you this, Raven, but you happen to not be a line of code.”

Raven rolls her eyes, unhighlighting the line and making a face. “And to think, with all of that genius, you couldn’t hack into my ship,” she mutters. 

“My ship,” Zeke says, looking amused, “which you hacked into first.”

“Making it mine,” Raven lifts a shoulder. 

“That’s really not how that works.”

Raven shoots him a long glance before hitting a couple more keys, and then her signature glows in the background of the screen. “You know,” she says, her voice thick with exaggerated shock, “that looks an awful lot like a raven, saying  _ hi there, this is my ship _ .”

Zeke laughs again, and Raven finds a smile playing around the corners of her mouth. So what if he’s a distraction, he’s a cute one.

As the thought flashes through her mind, she realizes it means she’s much more tired than she thinks. She clears her throat, watching the raven on the screen fade away. “I appreciate the concern, but it’s an all nighter at this point.”

“Raven, you’ve barely slept the past three nights.”

“That’s not true,” she says automatically, even though it absolutely is. She’s surprised he’s noticed—Monty’s commented on it, but she’s pretty sure even Bellamy and Clarke don’t know—and she’s trying not to read too much into what that might mean. And she shouldn’t let it get to her, but something flutters in her stomach, where she’s flattered that he noticed. 

Zeke shakes his head on a short laugh. “You’re a terrible liar.”

Raven snorts, pushing the flutter away. “Please, I’m amazing at everything.”

“Not lying.”

“Did  _ everything  _ mean something different in the 21st century?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Zeke shrug easily as he retorts, “Does  _ denial  _ mean something different in the 22nd?”

“I am not in denial.”

“You kind of are.” 

“I am not; I’m just tired.”

As soon as she says it, Zeke snaps his fingers, and Raven hears what she just said.

“I’m sorry,” Zeke gloats, “you’re what?”

Raven purses her lips, refusing to look at him. “I’m working very hard and was making decent progress until some distraction burst into my lab—”

She doesn’t think he can get any more smug but apparently she’s wrong because she can  _ hear  _ the smirk on his voice. “Distracting, huh?”

“That’s not what I meant,” she mumbles, wishing her mind would uncloud itself for long enough to deal with the firewalls and Zeke, preferably simultaneously.  

“Yeah. Yeah, I know,” Zeke says, the smug lilt gone from his voice, and that sudden emptiness is enough for Raven to chance another glance over at him. 

He’s frowning at the code, jaw tight, and expression pensive. He must feel the weight of her eyes, because he blinks quickly, then looks up at her. Raven’s breath catches when his eyes meet hers. They’re equal parts resigned, hopeful, curious and contemplative, and Raven knows for a fact that if she’s too tired to parse through code, she’s way too tired to begin to comprehend what she’s reading in his eyes. 

“Go to bed, Zeke,” she says, turning back to her screens, surprised by the gentleness on her voice. 

After a moment, he sighs.

“See, I tried,” he leans back on the stool, crossing his arms. “But I could hear you thinking.”

And there it is again, the little flicker inside of her, something like feeling flattered. 

She looks over at him, cocking an eyebrow, and he shrugs, like he doesn’t no what else to say. “I’m serious, Raven.”

“Nobody thinks on a high enough frequency to catch the wavelength that this mind is working at.”

Again, the easy smile. “Yeah, probably not.”

It doesn’t feel like a victory, but she supposes it is. “So? Off you go, then.”

She goes back to the keys and waits for Zeke to move beside her. After half a minute, she realizes he hasn’t budged, and she can feel his gaze, heavy on her profile. She saves the code, turning to him, waiting for an explanation. 

Only he doesn’t give her one. 

Just continues to look at her, his eyes soft and expression peaceful, like he’s just content to be with her, next to her, and like he’s committing her face to memory. He blinks, slowly, and she registers that he’s here instead of asleep. 

“Zeke, you should sleep,” she says carefully, breaking the silence, and his gaze drops. 

“I told you, I tried.”

“Try again?” she tries, and though he gives the same exhale laugh, he’s shaking his head. 

“You’re gonna make me say it?” he asks, and when she shrugs because she isn’t sure what  _ it  _ is, Zeke looks back up at her. “I can’t sleep knowing you’re in here, working yourself into exhaustion, and not letting anyone help.”

And he says it with such simple conviction, honest sincerity, and Raven’s at a loss for words, which has happened maybe thrice in her life. 

“Oh,” she says after a beat, knowing it’s just the same as saying nothing at all but not knowing what else to fill the silence with. She realizes he’s still watching her, expression careful and eyes intent and she sighs. “Well, I can’t sleep knowing something is in here that could help up against wonkru.”

Zeke’s chin jerks to the side slightly and Raven knows she should be thinking about what she can say to get him to leave her alone, but instead she’s wondering if Zeke knows that when he frowns, his lips automatically push into a pout. She’s pretty sure he doesn’t, and she’s not sure when she noticed it first, but she’s never noticed it this close.

Not that she’s staring at his mouth. 

She shakes her head, looking back down at the screens, trying to think of a compromise. “I’ll tell you what,” she says, her eyes lighting on a tablet further down the table. She’d placed it down there earlier when the battery was almost gone, but now the sight of it gives her an idea; she points at it and Zeke leans over to pick it up for her, passing it down with a wary expression as she powers it on, and starts to type rapidly on it. “Why don’t you come at the decryption from this angle, and maybe many eyes will make light work?”

“It’s many  _ hands _ ,” Zeke mutters, but he takes the tablet eagerly, settling back on the stool, already parsing through it. Raven watches him carefully in her peripherals, the flutter returning. It’s...sweet. That he wants to help, that he’d rather be in here than be asleep. Which is exactly why she put him in the driest part of the code, and her plan is to get him to fall asleep anyways. 

She lets him work for a minute or two, waiting. Sure enough, she hears the tablet beep, and Zeke starts looking around for a charger. 

“Oh, is it out of battery?” she asks, innocently enough. “I think there’s a charger over there, by the bench?”

Bless his heart, he falls for it. 

Takes the tablet, happily plugs it in, and slouches on the bench to still hold the tablet while he’s charging. Now that he’s behind her, Raven lets herself smile. A minute later, she hears him readjusting for a more comfortable angle and now she’s pretty proud of herself, because, with any luck, he’ll be asleep inside of ten minutes. 

And it’s odd. 

Because Raven has always worked best alone, when it’s just her and a keyboard or a suit, and the galaxy or a motherboard before her. But there’s something soothing about Zeke’s even breathing behind her. About having someone can’t sleep while she’s still working, and can only slip away when he thinks he’s helping. It isn’t like it makes her eyelids any less heavy, or lessens the cramp in her side, but her head feels a little steadier. 

Half an hour later, she finds it.

Raven doesn’t believe it at first, then she drills a little deeper into the code and this, this is her in. She’s a frenzy of typing for a couple of minutes and then her fingers still over the board and she holds her breath: the code runs. She lets out a breath in a whoosh, throwing a fist pump for Monty. It’ll take a couple of hours to complete itself, but once that’s done, she’s in. 

Raven sags back on the stool, exhausted but proud. She gives herself a moment to rest on her laurels, before she turns. Zeke hasn’t moved in the last hour, and a soft smile works its way over her face. He’s on his side on the bench, one arm still holding the tablet next to the power source, the other between his cheek and the bench, like a pillow. 

Part of her wants to wake him, tell him to go back to his actual room, but she can’t bring herself to do that. What if he wakes up and can’t fall back asleep? The least she can do is give him his rest. 

She slides off the stool, gritting her teeth as her legs get used to the change of position for the first time in hours. It takes a moment, but when she thinks she can move stealthily enough, she sets about shutting the lab down for the night. She powers down all the screens except for the one glowing with a raven as her code runs in the background. Then she crosses the floor lightly to the bench. With a careful touch, she untangles his fingers from the tablet he stirs at her touch, but when she freezes, he doesn't wake. With a soft exhale of relief, Raven finishes prying the tablet from his grasp. 

She should trek back to the village, to her comfortable bed, to be near Clarke and Madi. Sleep in her space, with her people. 

Or. 

Raven looks down at the bench, her mind racing before she can stop it. 

It’s plenty wide for two... and she really should stick near the computers, in case something happens...and it doesn’t hurt anything that Zeke looks completely harmless in this light...and she’ll probably wake up before him, so there’s really no harm there…

Maybe she’s too tired to think straight and maybe she’ll regret it in the morning, but now, Raven toes out of her shoes, and tries to lie as carefully as she can down on the bench. 

She’s holding her breath as she lowers her back down to the cool metal. Zeke doesn’t move, doesn’t stir, and she lets out a slow breath, turning her head slightly towards him. 

There was a movie from even before Zeke’s time that her mother liked to watch when she was getting drunk off moonshine she’d traded Raven’s rations for, something with a girl with eyes like the moon and a thief who saves her family from ruin. They spend half the movie crouched in a janitor’s closet, folded on top of each other, arms close but not touching, eyes deliberately looking at hair and collars instead of lips.   

And when Raven blinks her eyes open, she thinks maybe this is something like that. 

His face is so close to hers, and she can’t explain the soft smile that spreads over her face. She likes his eyes, she has since he first broke into her interrogation, so it’s something else to study his face when they’re closed. His eyelashes are long, and they’re fluttering as he sleeps; she hopes that means sweet dreams. She’s always heard the cliche of people looking angelic when they sleep, but that’s not the word that comes to mind. Because she can feel his breath in soft puffs, and there’s a crease in his forehead from where he’s usually frowning, that’s relaxed as he sleeps. And he’s not ethereal, he’s more solid. He’s like marble, she decides, like something Michelangelo hewed from dolomite. 

Raven has to laugh at herself then. 

She’s lying on her back on a metal bench, admiring a stranger’s eyelashes. And cheekbones and jawline and the rest of him, all pretty nice, but it’s a level of indulgence that she doesn’t usually allow herself. 

She needs to sleep. 

And she can’t do that with his face right in front of hers, so she rolls over carefully, as gracefully as she can manage. The room seems colder, now that her mind isn’t in overdrive, so maybe, just maybe, Raven backs up slightly. She’s not touching him, not cradled into him as some insane part of her wants to be, but she can feel the warmth of him, and Raven finally lets her eyes close.

\----

When she wakes up, she is warm. She is steady, she is secure and she is held and it’s been so long…

Raven’s eyes fly open on a gasp that seems to echo around the empty room. 

Thank god it’s still empty. 

From the light streaming in through the overhead windows, it’s morning, which means anyone could come in. And see her. And see them.

Which is the next thing that she notices: that there’s a them to notice. Because she hasn’t moved since before she fell asleep—her knees are still almost at the edge of the bench, her head still resting on her folded arm—but Zeke did move. 

She listens carefully and yep, he’s still asleep. 

She doesn’t have to listen, though, because she can feel his breath on the back of her neck. As in  _ right  _ at the back of her neck; his nose is pressed into her hair and she can feel his breath ghosting over her skin when he exhales. As if that isn’t enough, his arm is wrapped around her waist. Not resting on her, not on the bench between them, but properly around her waist, his elbow above her hip and his hand tucked between her and the bench. Her henley has ridden up slightly in the night and she can feel his fingers against the skin of her stomach, holding her steady, holding her close. In his sleep, he’s pulled her into him, pressed neatly against his chest, wrapped up in him. 

Raven’s eyes flutter shut for a moment. 

For a moment, this is okay. For a moment, she can revel in strong arms around her, a broad chest supporting her. For a moment, she’s just a girl being held by a boy with soft eyes and a mouth that likes to smile. For a moment, it’s beautiful. 

Perfect, even. 

Then she remembers that she’s never just a girl, and she’s never _that_ girl, and that Raven Reyes has the world to save, again. 

If she could just untangle herself from Zeke. 

She’s hoping that getting herself out of his grasp would be as easy as it had been last night with the tablet, but such isn’t the case. If she coaxes his fingers away from her stomach, he nuzzles deeper into her neck; if she pulls her head away from him, his ankle crosses over hers. It doesn’t help any that the room seems especially cold when compared to the warmth of his chest, or that he’s humming nonsense every now and then, and then that makes her wonder what his voice sounds like first thing in the morning. 

And she’s listening with growing alarm, waiting for the hitch in his breathing that will let her know that he’s awake, but it doesn’t come.   

Finally, she gives in, resigns herself for the oncoming mortification of Zeke waking up and realizing he’s wrapped himself around her, or for Monty to stumble into the lab and never let her live this one down; she’s honestly not sure which will be more awkward. But if waiting’s the name of the game, she allows herself to wallow in it a bit. When she stops resisting, Zeke’s arms tighten and she lets herself he pulled back into him.

And she should feel guilty, for stealing this moment that will be gone soon, but it just feels right. So she tilts her head slightly, so his can rest more easily behind her, and nearly jumps out of her skin when Zeke’s next breath is a soft rumble of a laugh, and his fingers spread against her waist. 

“I thought you were gonna pull us of the bench, Reyes,” he mumbles into her hair, amusement and sleep thick on his voice and understanding dawns on Raven and her jaw actually drops. She sputters for a second, and when she tries to turn, Zeke’s arm tightens around her again and she scowls, even though she knows he can’t see it. 

“Okay, so how long have you been awake?” 

“Something like forty minutes,” he says lightly, unbothered.

She doesn’t say anything at that, processing. He can feel the change in her, and he loosens his grip on her, releasing her, if she wants. 

Which, of course, she doesn’t. 

She rolls over carefully, wincing at the awkward angle and her leg feeling particularly heavy. Zeke lets her move, following her motion, his arm lifting to give her room, but his hand settling over her back to make sure she stays on the bench. Once she’s situated, he lowers his arm again, hesitantly, and Raven tries not to smile too broadly at that. Of course, he had no qualms pulling her closer in his sleep, but once she’s facing him, he’s not sure if it’s too much. 

She looked at him like this last night, his face a breath from hers, but it’s different now that his eyes are open. Now that she can watch them dip down to her lips as she licks them, then ghost over her face. Now that she knows the security of being pressed against him, and what his breath feels like against her neck. 

“When were you going to wake me?” she asks.

Zeke shifts, the arm at her waist lifting so his hand can brush the side of her face. His thumb traces along her cheek, his other fingers fanning out around her neck once he passes her ear. 

“I wasn’t going to,” he admits, like a confession, and Raven’s breath stutters at his touch. “You needed to sleep.”

“But the code—”

“Completed forty minutes ago,” he interrupts, looking pleased with himself. 

At Raven’s confused expression, he lifts his chin, looking pointedly upwards. Raven cranes her neck to look at the top of the bench, where the tablet is balanced. The raven insignia is glowing white, and Raven’s eyes drop to Zeke’s as she relaxes back. 

“We’re in?” 

“We’re in,” he confirms, smiling. “You did it.”

And Raven isn’t sure whether it’s the proximity or the early morning or the exhaustion, but it’s impossible to respond to his smile with anything other than one of her own. Her eyes shut again, in relief this time, and she lets out a sigh, contented. “Of course I did,” she mumbles. “Did you doubt?”

Zeke doesn’t say anything, but after a moment, she hears him shifting again. Then there’s a gentle brush of his lips against her forehead, and he’s pulling at her again, back into him. She lets herself be pulled, her head fitting into his shoulder and turning into him. 

“Not for a second,” he whispers, and Raven smiles into his neck. The room’s no longer cold, and she isn’t sure if it’s from the sun, or Zeke, or her own sappy smile, but she thinks that she could probably get used to all three. 

**Author's Note:**

> The movie Raven remembers is “How to Steal a Million” it has Audrey Hepburn and Peter O’Toole and Paris and Givenchy and you should all watch it.


End file.
